Richard White is at it again! This time he’s interviewing Jona Sturgess from The Pirate Ship Quintet, and he’s interested in finding the pirate’s hidden treasures.

First of all, I feel the need to make an unreserved public apology. Those of you who read my review of The Pirate Ship Quintet EP might not have picked up on the grave error I made in boldly stating that they use a cello and a violin. Having interviewed the band, it has been brought to my attention that there is no violin – what can be heard in “Pirate Ship” is, in fact, 8 layers of cello, no less – and that the error has plunged the Quintet’s talented cellist into the depths of depression. As a classically-trained musician (of sorts) and a (very, VERY) amateur violinist, I hang my head in shame at this mistake, and wish to apologize to cellist Sandy for any humiliation and inconvenience I may have caused. I also apologize on behalf of the other classical musician whose opinion I sought as to whether a violin was involved; she was also wrong. Sometimes, prozac just isn’t enough; get well soon Sandy.

All of which brings us swiftly on to the interview. I talked to Jona Sturgess and pretty much the rest of the Quintet…octet…erm, band, about their upcoming UK tour, future plans and who was really responsible for writing Blueneck’s Scars Of The Midwest.

Firstly, it hasn’t escaped my attention that there are eight members of the band….so why ARE you called The Pirate Ship Quintet?

“Only seven now actually. We recently had a bit of trouble with our trumpeter. Although he was technically only a stand-in because our original trumpeter is currently living in China until late summer when we will start playing with us again. We were a quintet for about 5 minutes around a year and a half ago, which was when the band was named. We didn’t think it was worth changing the name each time because we can’t count that well. Plus, we like ships.”

Makes sense! Presumably, with there being seven of you, you must have quite a diverse range of influences?

“Yeah we’re into lots of things from Bowie to City of Caterpillar to Stravinsky to Black Sabbath to Scott Joplin to Kayo Dot etc.”

You’re embarking on a UK tour in the near future with Blueneck and Sound Devastation labelmates Red Paper Dragon. So tell me, just how pissed off were Blueneck that TSB gave your EP a better score than “Scars Of The Midwest?”

“Well, we wrote most of their album as well so those pricks can’t complain….obviously that’s a joke man, they’re awesome and they deserve 50/10”

Who would win in a bar fight, you or Blueneck?

“We would hands down, 1- there are twice as many of us. 2 – We’re younger and more sprightly. 3- We’re ALWAYS armed and 4 – Ziapour is a giant! I can say all this with relative confidence as it has happened on a several occasions”

Are you likely to be performing any new material on the tour?

“We’ve got 3 new songs to be performed which will form part of the new record we hope to start recording sometime this year. Although the three-track EP took us long enough over about 3 separate attempts to record an EP, so don’t expect anything right away.”

Any plans to tour further afield?

“We can’t really afford it at the moment but we’d love to do it. If the label is up for helping us out then we’d obviously jump at the chance. We’d love to go to the North of England, Scotland, Ireland, anywhere really. We want support slots with Pelican, ISIS, A Silver Mt. Zion, MONO, Sigur Ros, bands like that.”

Presumably you’ve already made special plans for September 19th?

“Every day is September 19th for us.”

As in, International Talk Like A Pirate days?

“Yeah, every day.”

Cool. I thought as much. Recently, a number of eagerly-awaited instrumental releases have been leaked months ahead of schedule, by bands including Explosions In The Sky, Do Make Say Think, Caspian, and of course yourselves. Do you view this as a bad thing necessarily?

“It’s kind of weird being on the other end of it, but at the same time when you’re a band who are just releasing their first record we’re just happy that people want to hear it.”

There have certainly been a number of favorable responses to the leak

“Yeah we’re pretty stoked about the response so far. We’re really just excited about recording the next one as well, because the songs on the EP were written a long time ago”

What do you think of the Yndi Halda comparison?

Well….we obviously see that they are making post-rock and have a classical string instrument, as to whether we think they are the band we sound most like I think we’d probably disagree, but then it’s not really for us to say, it’s pretty hard to hear your own music like other people do you grow kind of immune to it. I think we see ourselves as being a bit darker and heavier. Having said that our older songs i.e. the self-titled EP definitely conforms to a more recognisable post rock approach like Yndi, but perhaps you’ll make different comparisons when you hear the next one. We definitely don’t want to hang around the same musical ballpark not least of all because all the musical parents are there with their musical kids and people will start getting musically suspicious about musical loiterers. No-one likes a paedo, musical or otherwise.

Any reason you named one of your songs I Kina Spiser De Hund (literally ‘In China They Eat Dogs’)?

“We named that song in dedication to our original trumpeter Moo, who is in China and has been telling us all about his adventures. Plus one of the guys in the band is Norwegian and he likes the taste of dogs. Plus it’s pretty important for us to not take ourselves too seriously. We’ve tried to approach everything with a bit of a tongue-in-cheek attitude”

It just goes to show you can never trust Scandinavians. Speaking of which, The Silent Ballet’s Swedish reviewer Jonas would like to know “Has anyone got a pegleg or a parrot? Eyepatches? Do you drink rum and only rum until death do you apart? If so, what about the grog?” (we like to humor him)

“Off the record, none of us are really pirates. Although Gwyn has got scurvy.”

Can I not make that on the record?

“Haha, yeah!”

Cool! I also have a question to ask on behalf of TSB dark overlord Jordan: “Why was the CD was delayed for a year?” (he’s never one to beat around the bush)

“Basically because we were never really happy with it. We ended up not bothering with studios and just bought the equipment we needed and did it all in our student house. So it was a lot easier and also allowed us to really take our time rather than rushing them out in a studio as we’d tried to do before.”

How did you manage to get Cult of Luna to mix and master the EP?

“We played with them last year at the Joiners and they were dead nice to us and offered to record us, we even talked of going over to Sweden to make the record but funds inevitably put a damper on that so we recorded here at home on the dreary English South coast then stuffed all those troublesome new-fangled electrical files into a bottle and cast them out to sea. We also sent back-ups on DVDs to Sweden via recorded post.”

Who are your favourite instrumental bands in the US? (that’s another Jordan question, if you hadn’t realised)

“We don’t listen to a lot of American bands not out of principle or anything it just seems a lot of the stuff we’re into comes from here, Europe, Scandinavia and a few from Canada. Though we do obviously dig bands like Explosions, Isis, Enablers, Hella, Iron and Wine and I’m personally (Jona) in love with the new Joanna Newsom album.”

Finally, I’m running a poll amongst bands I’m interviewing – can you tell the readers of The Silent Ballet what your favourite music website is?

“www.thepirateshipquintet.co.uk – it’s really nice. And of course you guys.”

Really? Wow…we’re flattered!

The Pirate Ship Quintet wish to thank Magnus Lindberg for mastering the EP, Tim Sharpe and Dave Thomas who helped with the mixing and Lucy Oldfield and Emily Golden for the artwork.

The Silent Ballet thanks The Pirate Ship Quintet for the interview.
The band’s debut EP is currently available to pre-order from Sound Devastation Records.

Written By: host
Date Posted: 3/7/2007
Number of Views: 1618